How much freedom should soloists have?

[tbdana]

Another way of asking this is how much deviation from the written music is acceptable from a soloist? Does it matter whether or not it's an established piece such as the David concerto, or a new blended kind of piece like the Corea concerto? What about if it's an experimental jazz piece, are the rules any different?

Where do we draw the line between acceptable interpretation versus an unacceptable alteration of a, perhaps, time-honored piece?

Are we slaves to the written page, or is that page merely a framework for our musical interpretation?

Are the rules strict, or are there no rules at all?

I recently played a not-very-famous concerto and changed the ending on the fly. I doubt anyone knew I had changed it. Instead of ending on a low trigger C, I ended it on a high C, with an entirely different lick leading up to that last note. Should I be sent to Hell for my apostasy, or celebrated for my originality? And does it matter?

What if it had been a jazz piece rather than a classical piece? I mean, improvisation is part of the fabric of jazz. If the notes are written, are we obligated to stick to them?

Is it permissible to stone a trombonist to death just for using vibrato? Or is it such a free-for-all that there is no longer any structure or truth in the world, and it's all just chaos and we are falling through time and space with nothing to hold onto?

Have I had one too many cups of coffee this morning?

[LetItSlide]

You can play whatever you want, whenever you want. The main question to ask yourself is: do you feel like dealing with the consequences of stepping outside of norms that would be tolerated by your audience, the conductor/leader, and your peers?

[MStarke]

Oh no, my longer response got lost...

The short version of my opinion:
For a "serious" piece like David, Wagenseil, Gröndahl, Martin, Xenakis etc.: Play what is written. Deviate only if a) it has been well-established in the trombone world to play it differently (e.g. Christian Lindberg takes some things up in David which is very logical), b) the original is obviously due to assumed limitations of the instrument that do not exist (anymore) or c) there are different editions with different options.

For a show piece like Blue Bells: Do whatever you want as long as its impressive.

For a jazz piece: Do whatever is tasteful. But do it not only considering your own playing, but also how the accompaniment is played and what the overall environment may indicate.

[tbdana]

You can play whatever you want, whenever you want. The main question to ask yourself is: do you feel like dealing with the consequences of stepping outside of norms that would be tolerated by your audience, the conductor/leader, and your peers?

That's kind of a reductio ad absurdum answer. Of course you can do anything you want if you're willing to accept the consequences. Instead of playing the piece at all, you can whip out an assault rifle and take out the first three rows of the audience, so long as you're willing to accept the consequences. (And for the record, I'm not saying that's a bad idea. )

I think the question itself is asking where those asks where the boundaries of "norms that would be tolerated by your audience, the conductor/leader, and your peers" are.

[elmsandr]

Depends on who those collaborators are. Listen to the Duke Ellington meets Coleman Hawkins and then the Duke Ellington meets John Coltrane recordings…. Same concept; same headlining act, two very different interpretations of where to go as a soloist.

Which Norm do you prefer? Which makes you uncomfortable? There’s a lot of differences there for people; I probably wouldn’t care what you do, I may mention it if I think it stunk, but the change doesn’t bother me per se. I’m sure there are others that are quite bothered. Know your band mates, or talk it out. Or, as I sometimes prefer, just don’t care too much.

Cheers,
Andy

[BrassSection]

I have all I want! Playing off guitar chord sheet I “Orchestrate and arrange” all the brass parts on the fly. Just have to respect the song and the setting, no Maynard Ferguson takeoffs on the trumpet, for example. In high school band did add some notes occasionally, band director was ok, they were subtle and appropriate. Christmas community basically stuck to music, but I was playing baritone part on euph. Did drop a few notes an octave when it worked, conductor ok with that.

Basically know what fits and how it will be taken by everybody.

[harrisonreed]

Just do whatever you want

[LeTromboniste]

Down with the sacred cows.

You can do whatever you want. But then again anyone can say anything they want about what you did. If you did something that can easily be argued was in bad taste, or displayed a lack of understanding of the music, or mastery of the style, then expect some people to say it.

I take issue with doing things only if they have been well established by other soloists first. There was a time for any of these things where they were not yet established, and someone had to first do them. I also think it's a bit lazy artistically to only go "off the page" in ways that others have done before instead of coming up with one's own ideas.

This is all especially true of music from before the late 19th century and composers trying to write every little detail. Before then (and the further back you go, the more true this is), the notation was only meant as a guide. Ornamentation was not only allowed but expected. A soloist who wouldn't use ornamentation and variation to display their skill – and most importantly their good taste and mastery of the language – wouldn't have a career. Servile obedience to the ink and "the intent of the composer" is an entirely modern concept.

[BGuttman]

I think you can take lots of liberties with the solo, but with a few caveats.

1. Don't stray from the chord structure if you have somebody backing you. If they are playing in Bb and you decide to modulate to E, it may not sound good.

2. Watch out with the rubato. If the accompaniment isn't clued in to your tempo changes you can make either you or your accompaniment sound like crap. If you want a nice rubato somewhere, rehearse it with the accompaniment and once you have established that this will happen, don't change. Especially true with amateurs accompanying.

Of course you should use taste and finesse, or you will not come off as a soloist anybody would want to hear again.

Again, look at the context. If you are playing a "classical" piece (which includes late 19th/early 20th century solos with band), keep the solo within the context of the style. A full-on improvised chorus in the middle of the Rimsky-Korsakov may sound more than a little "off". Similarly, playing the melody when you are expected to take a chorus in a Swing Band number will also sound "off".

[JohnL]

Play what you want. Hopefully you don't cross over from "that's an interesting interpretation" to "that's not how that goes!" If you do, you might not find out until that contractor stops calling you. No guarantees in life.

[stewbones43]

Sorry to be "Old School" but I have probably had too many birthdays,(see my signature!)

You have as much freedom as the composer intended! I have done a fair amount of arranging and composing in my time and have always found it very annoying and rude when the performer changes what I intended.

The only time it is acceptable is where it marked Ad Lib, such as in a cadenza. Otherwise, don't change what someone else has invested a lot of time, expertise and emotion in.

Cheers

Stewbones43

[robcat2075]

I recently played a not-very-famous concerto and changed the ending on the fly. I doubt anyone knew I had changed it.

[Posaunus]

I recently played a not-very-famous concerto and changed the ending on the fly. I doubt anyone knew I had changed it.

I think that's just the way Schoenberg wrote it, robcat!

[robcat2075]

I recall from my music history that soloists doing-whatever-they-wanted-to-do had become a widely-noted problem in opera in the 18th and early 19th Centuries.

Extravagant melisma, inserted runs, 8va high notes and other departures became a plague as opera singers' egos grew larger than the parts written for them. Of course, that wouldn't have happened without audiences egging them on in some regard, but to composers it was an annoyance.

Enter Wagner and other "reformers" who began insisting the music be performed as written. The notes on the page were as carefully chosen as the brushstrokes in a painting and now more than just a premise for a theatrical amusement.

[TomRiker]

That's an interesting point re: opera singers and egos. My personal answer is to do whatever will make the musical performance best for the audience. But based on that point I'd add best for the audience and NOT for your ego. I probably have better phrasing than technique so I will use that to improve a performance (for the record I haven't performed on trombone in.... lets just say more than a decade). For me the rhythm and phrase is everything and at the end of the day if making a change makes the piece better then I'm going to change it. No offense to the composers here, but I play for my and/or the audiences enjoyment not the composers. If you want total control then you have to own the entire process. If you compose, write, choreograph, or whatever then you are putting out into the world something that others will interpret for their creative and performative needs. In my opinion, when playing a solo, even if you play exactly the notes as written but don't add something that isn't in the manuscript then the performance was not successful.

[LeTromboniste]

You have as much freedom as the composer intended!

Ah, see, but that's where we run into trouble! Who exactly gets to decide what the intention of the composer was, when they are not there for us to ask them? Notation has always been incomplete. Just "playing the ink" is not music. There is always some degree of interpretation.

Surely adding phrasing that is not specifically written is okay? And surely playing louder here, softer there, shaping one note one way and the next another way, all things that are not explicitly marked, is also okay? And deciding on which articulations we use, that again are usually not marked?
Then, rhythmic notation only covers a tiny fraction of the possibilities. Surely as a soloist one can use rubato? Some purposeful rhythmic irregularity and variation?
Extemporaneous ornamentation was very much expected during most of music history – is it wrong to add ornaments in appropriate places and style, even if they are not written by the composer, when the composer at the time would have expected ornaments to be added by the performer?
Was Ferdinand David wrong to substantially rewrite the violin part for Mendelssohn's concerto ahead of premiering it?

Now, of course if the composer is alive and available for you to ask their opinion, that's probably a good idea. But for the majority of the repertoire, where that is not an option, where do we draw the line?

I see the "composer's intent" constantly invoked to make or justify musical decisions that are completely foreign to the context the composer knew. For a lot of the music we play, the instruments, the sound concept, the performance practice, the performance context, the acoustic and any number of other parameters are just lightyears away from what the composer knew and could possibly intend. So I prefer not to deify composers, and to treat their music as art, not as a museum artefact. Besides, almost every composer I've ever worked with was encouraging of performers taking liberties, and thrilled to see their music become a living piece of art outside of their own mind, and hearing performers' ideas bring their music to places they hadn't even imagined.

[LeTromboniste]

Agreed however that our choices should be at the service of the music and not of our ego.

An example of a change to a piece that annoys me is the playing the repeated C's an octave up at the end of the Grondahl. It's not what's originally written, but it has become the absolute standard way of playing it. I used to do it too. I remember asking my teacher about it in a lesson, and he said he didn't want to tell me to do it or not (he was not a fan of playing it up, but only said that later). Instead he recommended I record myself doing both versions and have a listen. When I listened back I realised the original with the C down was so much more dramatic and intense, and that playing the C up was just taking away from the drama and the shape in favour of showing off high notes. One sounded like earth-shattering drama, the other like a circus trick... I recorded several more versions of the high version to try to get it to sound as intense, and none of them sounded remotely as convincing musically as the original. I never played it up the octave after that, and every version I hear, I can't help but think about how much better the ending would be if they played it down.

That being said, we should absolutely have the liberty of playing it that way if we want, and have people agree or disagree with our choice.

[BGuttman]

Much like the guy waving the stick for most pieces, you as soloist have the option to interpret the music in a way that speaks to you.

If what speaks to you differs from your prospective audience and they stay away in droves, that's on you. If your interpretation speaks to the audience, your reputation gets a lift.

This is what I call "taste".

The issue for the soloist playing to an accompaniment, as I've said above, is they have to perform as a team, not as a pair of fighters.

[Kbiggs]

Enough to hang themselves.